Art Tips Post

art tips post

for all the artist following me

Have two sketchbooks: One for finished and high-quality art (stuff made with Prismacolor or Copic if you use that or art for your portfolio) and the other sketchbook for more messy doodles. This way you have a place to try new things and mess up as much as you need. When I only had one sketchbook I was scared to draw in it because I didn't want to mess it up

Do studies. I cant tell you how much I've improved just by doing studies of shoes, hands, noses, and all that. This works for when you have art block too since you’re not really making stuff up and just learning how real things work.

Learn from others. I’ve never taken a real art class because 1. I can’t afford it and 2. there’s no good art classes/programs at my school. I’ve been following several artists and learning from them over the years and they’ve helped me tremendously. Just please do not steal art because that is never okay.

Break down concepts. If you notice there’s something wrong with your piece then figure out why. You can’t get better if you leave mistakes and don't try to understand whats going on. If the color is weird figure out if the values look right or maybe its the saturation of the color.

Watch youtube tutorials. Here are some youtubers I think are pretty good art teaching all things art: Draw with Jazza |  DrawingWiffWaffles |  Proko |  Baylee Jae

Have an inspiration folder/blog. Sometimes you just need a collection of starry nights or a misty forest or even a French bakery. All of those things can help you get inspired to draw. It could even be completely unrelated to what you plan to draw.

There are no dumb ideas in the creative process. If you want to draw a lizard in a dress go for it! If you want to draw various pastries with faces do it! Don’t let the thought of it being too dumb stop you because if I’ve learned anything in my several years of drawing it’s that an idea can lead to another and another and another and you may get a really good idea just from doodling dumb things.

Here’s a few things that can get you started on drawing better:

Dynamic poses | Dynamic clothes | Dynamic figure drawing

COMPOSITION | PERSPECTIVE | CONSTRUCTION

Anatomy:

Legs

Arms

Hands

Heads

Body (Female) (Male

Color Theory

Improving your sketchbook

Most importantly, don’t give up! You may not immediately get notes or followers but it’s more important you get better than to have popularity. How do you think those popular artists got to where they are now? To be good you’ve got to work at it.

A master post of Thomas Romain’s art tutorials.

There’s not enough space to post all of them, SO here’s links to everything he has posted (on twitter) so far : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12. 

Now that new semesters have started, I thought people might need these. Enjoy your lessons!

i literally love how your color and shade if it’s ok do you have any tips on digital coloring? you don’t have to answer this if you don’t feel like it :) thanks!!

hello friend!! i have a tutorial i made on twitter a while ago which is more or less how i make my colours more interesting. i still use the technique and in general it’s just a lot of colour adjustment nothing too special LOL here!!

Something else I forgot to post, done for a Suikoden zine!

Since my second Tribute to modders turned out the be so popular, I decided to turn my first post into a Thumblr-post too. I hadnt started a Thumblr yet when I made this one. .

Here on Thumblr some of the pictures might be a littlebit altered since I have fiddled a lot with my screenshots since then, but the shots are the same.

(I have learned a bit more since then about screenshots and tools, this old ones arent the best quality but hey, i`ll make it original, and I will avoid the temptation of editing them (and hopefully I can find them all… :-) )

Tribute to Modders Nr 1 can originally be found HERE on Nexus (copy of this post)

Tribute to Modders nr 2 can be found HERE on nexus and HERE on Thumblr.

Tribute to Modders Nr 1

I would have stopped playing this game a LONG time ago, but..thanks to all you modders out there I keep playing this game, and I still love it. I make few characters, but when I make them, I spend time on them. I want to develop a kind of relationship with them…and because you guys have dedicated some of your precious time creating mods that makes our toons beautiful, it is easy to fall in love with your character when you see the end result. Thank you modders, for making this game fun time and time again. And thank you for sharing your art and hard work with us - we - who are completely and utterly incompitent and cannot make them ourself. (Ok, ok, I speak for myself now, tho, but…i KNOW im not alone:P ) - This is a tribute to you modders - This must be my favorite toon so far. Frost is her name. She started out like this.

In reality she would be something like this….

…if it wasnt for you guys. And this is even with some mods active!! The horror… In the pic above this you can see a mod active that can change your toons hair-colour, DAI Hair recolor utility by  Legion of the Living. It is indeed a awesome tool. She started out with  lovely and skilled Ascendia`s Yennifer-complexion, together with a very popular mod made of Zolariel - New and Improved Makeup For All.

Throughout the game I have tested many different complextions. The last days I have used StepShy`s All about the face - Allisa-complextion with makeup, shown here:

In this pictures she is wearing Viviennes armor…How, you might ask? Easy. You download Borglet`s Live like Viv - mod. Then you can laugh in Vivienne`s face too!

And in company with the complextion I made her eyes beautiful with StepShy`s absolutely gorgeous eye-mod. I have tested a lot of them. Through the campaign I ended up with number 5, wich has turned out to be my favorite, as pictured here:

I have never liked face-tattoos on my characters. But… not long ago the insanely skilled StepShy came through with a new mod: Sheps Tattoo Collection. I could not stop myself. I had to take a trip to BE and get myself a tattoo!

Needless to say….. the modders are a tad better with tattoos than…you know… ahem… at any rate; this pic will explain it… a pic without a lot of mods enabled… Freshly out of Black Impodium, who, as we know, dont like mods.

There are so many skilled hair-modders out there, and I cannot mention them all here. But, I will admidt I got two favorites. Those who arent mentioned, you are not forgotten, and we love you. Skaramoosh with his extremely popular Hair Pack, I have used his Messy Wavy Bob through my latest game. Kadust is my other favorite, who has made a LOT of hairmods. I rarely play male, feels a bit odd since im a girl, but I did one playthough, and this is the hair I used on him, made by Kadust:

I used a lovely complextion on him, created by Tevinterscum. It was beautiful. And to make his vitaar a TAD more interesting I used  RockingAntelope`s Kieta’s new vitaar-mod. His butt-kicking armor would not be possible without Atherisz`s Trespasser Skyhold PJ Replacer and Schematics - mod. Aaaand how could I possibly equip a warrior-armor since this toon is a mage? Why, you get the Tirnoney`s Armor - No Class Restrictions Remade-mod of course! An additional little teaser from Skaramoosh`s hairpack is shown here:

And let us not forget something for ALL the hairmods out there; SK Hair Re-texture by Skaramoosh. Something that follows all your toons is eye-lashes and eyebrow-mods. I have tried them all. My favorites are Improved Lashes by xStephyG, Lush Lashes by Sho aka Zirael, and Elongated lashes by Ascendia, wich I have used lately, shown here:

There are also a collection of eyebrows out there, most popular is Settra`s, MrJack900 and Shantia. I have used them all, but Settra`s is shows on this images. I do not like some of the bodies in this game. Elves are to skinny and dwarves..well..yea… Thanks to Custom Body Models  by Aravasia my last character, who was elf, could have a little more skin on her bones! More to Sera`s taste…. Here shown with StepShy`s lovely Dark Faye PJ.

I also got the Custom body models-mod on my human too, as seen here (and on all the other pics, Doh..). Here I am equipped with Sera`s armor?! How, you say? well.. you can get Sera’s breeches-mod  by Iris!

There are a lot of recoloring / tints out there, and now the brilliant mind tirnoney with his Opulent Tint have figured out how we all can change the colors in a easy way! I gotta admidt, I havent tried. I am so completely incompetent that even that seems overwhelming to me. Therefor I have swore to other brilliand minds and used those instead! I have used colors from  Seasonal Palettes by Berelinde, Dragon (and Other) Crafting Material Recolors by Electricfish mainly, altho I have used others too, I got a huge list of mixes, but I cannot remember them now, unfortunately. Here are some examples on both my quizzys and my companions:

I am a outfit-addict, and love to try on pretty things. (I know, girl-thing) I wanted to show you my favotite PJ`s and at the same time thank the modders for making me something pretty to wear! This is my favorite. unfortunately it is no longer available, so I will not write who has modded it, but I will honor it with two examples of it:

The Dress by jacknifelee - together with Atherisz`s formal wear replacer - wedding dress.

Human and Qunari female skyhold jammies 18 styles by luna1124

This lovely outfit is made by Kalaheria, from her Kalaheria’s Odds and Ends-mod:

And here is another one from her that I really love:

I dont have a lot of pictures of my companions, but I use mods on each and every one of them. There is a lot of awesome companion-mods out there! An example is this picture, showing a lovely retexture of Blackwalls outfit. Mod is Studded Blackwall, made of OriginOfWaves:

Here is a lovely mod that makes Cullens eyes heavenly blue!

Here is various mods shown on my companions and advisors:

There is a lot of other mod I use, I am a mod-addict. Mods, who lurks in the shadows and cant be seen. It is a bit cheat, but..I love Unlock and change Specializations by MxT–ZS. And I adore the influence-mods from Dheuster and Ghostifish. This is just some example, and I will never be done if I should write them all. At any rate: A big thanks to all the modders out there, those who mentioned here, and those who arent. You bring this game to the next level! My toon would never look like this if it wasnt for you!

- VickyDragon

Baby hears violin for the first time. (via AudreysMMB) [play to hear audio]